ed to be derived from _adamas_.
Nevertheless Klaproth (_op. citat._, p. 19) suggests that the word _aimant_
is a mere literal translation into French of the Chinese word _thsu chy_,
which is the common name of the magnet, and which means _loving stone_, or
_stone that loves_. All through the east the names of the magnet have
mostly the same signification, for example, in Sanskrit it is _thoumbaka_
(the kisser), in Hindustani _tchambak_.

[55] PAGE 11, LINE 20. Page 11, line 32. _Italis calamita_.--The name
_calamita_, universal in Italian for the magnet, is also used in Roumanian,
Croatian, Bosnian, and Wendish. Its supposed derivation from the Hebrew
_khallamish_ is repudiated by Klaproth, who also points out that the use of
[Greek: kalamita] in Greek is quite modern. He adds that the only
reasonable explanation of the word _calamita_ is that given by Father
Fournier (_op. citat._), who says:

"Ils (les marins francais) la nomment aussi _calamite_, qui proprement en
francais signifie une _grenouille verte_, parce qu'avant qu'on ait trouve
l'invention de suspendre et de balancer sur un pivot l'aiguille aimantee,
nos ancetres l'enfermaient dans une fiole de verre demi-remplie d'eau, et
la faisaient flotter, par le moyen de deux petits fetus, sur l'eau comme
une grenouille." Klaproth adds that he entirely agrees with the learned
Jesuit, but maintains that the word _calamite_, to designate the little
green frog, called to-day _le graisset_, _la raine_, or _la rainette_, is
essentially Greek. For we read in Pliny (_Hist. Nat._ lib. xxxii., ch. x.):
"Ea rana quam Graeci _calamiten_ vocant, quoniam inter arundines,
fruticesque vivat, minima omnium est et viridissima."

[56] PAGE 11, LINE 20. Page 11, line 32. _Anglis_ loadstone & adamant
stone.

The English term _loadstone_ is clearly connected with the Anglo-Saxon verb
_loedan_, to lead, and with the Icelandic _leider-stein_. There is no doubt
that the spelling _lodestone_ would be etymologically more correct, since
it means _stone that leads_ not _stone that carries a load_. The correct
form is preserved in the word _lode-star_.

The word _adamant_, from _adamas_, the mediaeval word for both loadstone
and diamond, also occurs in English for the loadstone, as witness
Shakespeare:

"You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant
But yet you draw not iron; for my heart
Is true as steel."
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, Act II, Scene 1.

[57] PAGE 11, LINE 21. Page 1